15. In our towns almost every tower and spire which we see is a modern building, though the styles may vary from Norman to Perpendicular and seventeenth century. Modern buildings, churches, halls, public offices, and private houses are mostly imitations of the work of past ages. There is no nineteenth-century style of English architecture. Some day, perhaps, England may develop a new style of architecture, such as the world has never yet seen, but at the present time we can only copy and adapt the work of those who have gone before us.
Summary.—Pews came much into use in churches after the Reformation, and the sides were very high. In the seventeenth century very few new churches were built, but many rings of bells were placed in the towers. The monuments became tablets, ornamented with skulls, cross-bones, &c. The oldest tombstones in churchyards are not earlier than 1660. In Wren's churches there is much fine woodwork.
In the eighteenth century the new churches built were oblong rooms, fitted up with galleries on three sides, having high pews and a tall pulpit. Corpses were buried in vaults under these churches and chapels, but by the middle of the nineteenth century burials in town churches and churchyards came to an end.
About 1840 a liking for Gothic architecture revived, and the churches and chapels since then have been built mostly in one or other of the Gothic styles. The nineteenth century has no style of architecture of its own.
[CHAPTER XLV]
SCHOOLS AFTER THE REFORMATION
1. A little of the property which had belonged to the religious houses was saved and turned to useful purposes. Just a very few of the old alms-houses were allowed to continue their work, like St. Cross at Winchester, and some schools and colleges were founded.
2. There are some of those schools which bear the name of King Edward VI. But Edward VI was only a lad of sixteen years of age when he died, so that he had practically nothing to do with either the good or the evil which was done in his name. In other towns, besides London, good men set to work and managed to get back some small part of the property of old religious houses for school work. In some places they were allowed to have part of an old ruin, which they patched up and made to serve as a school-room. This was the case, for instance, at St. Alban's, where the Lady Chapel of the monastery was the grammar-school until about twenty-five years ago.
3. It is quite true to say that many of our present grammar-schools rose out of the ashes of the monasteries. But they were not great buildings to hold scores of scholars. Many of them were only founded for ten or twelve scholars from a particular town or district. The sum set apart for a master to teach them was very small, so that he was usually allowed to take other scholars who paid for their education.
4. These schools had their "ups and downs", but many of them in the eighteenth century were in a very bad way. Some had scarcely any scholars, and the buildings were much out of repair. However, most of them are alive and active to-day, and many of them have histories of which they may be proud, and a past which should help them to excel in the future.
5. Children were often taught in the church and church porch in country places. John Evelyn was so taught in the early part of the seventeenth century, and many more people could read and write than we sometimes imagine; but knowledge was not within the reach of all.
6. The condition of the poor occupied a good deal of attention, and the poor-laws were used to improve matters in many ways. At Norwich, for instance, in the year 1632, a children's hospital was provided for boys between the ages of ten and fourteen. They were to be taught useful trades, and fed and clothed. For dinner they were to have 6 ounces of bread, 1 pint of beer, and, on three days of the week, 1 pint of pottage and 6 ounces of beef; on the other four days, 1 ounce of butter and 2 ounces of cheese. For supper they were to have 6 ounces of bread, 1 pint of beer, 1 ounce of butter, and 2 ounces of cheese. For breakfast every day they had 3 ounces of bread, 1/2 ounce of butter, and 1/2 pint of beer.